Sancia was no longer in the office, no longer in the foundry or the campo or even in Tevanne. She was gone from that place.
Now she stood atop creamy yellow sand dunes, the pale pink moon hanging fat and heavy in the sky. And standing on the dune across from her was…
A man. Or something man-shaped, facing away from her.
He was wrapped in black cloth, every inch of his body, his neck and face and feet. He wore a short black cloak that went down to about mid-thigh, and his arms and hands were lost in its folds. Next to the man-thing was a curious, ornate golden box, about three feet high and four feet long.
She knew this thing, she knew the box. She recognized them.
I can’t let him see me, she thought.
She heard a sound coming from somewhere in the sky…the sound of so many wings, tiny and delicate, like a giant flock of butterflies.
The man-thing’s head twitched ever so slightly, like he’d heard something. The sound of flapping wings grew louder.
No, she thought. No, no…
Then the man-thing rose up, just a touch, floating a foot above the dunes, and hung there, suspended in the night air.
* * *
Berenice stared through the spyglass as the guards got closer and closer. She had to do something, to warn Sancia or wake her somehow, or at least distract the guards.
She looked around. She had quite a few more rigs on her person, of course—when Berenice Grimaldi prepared, she did so with enthusiasm—but she’d never have imagined preparing for this.
Then she spied a possibility: there was a massive globe light just outside the southwest corner of the foundry, standing on a tall, iron pole, about forty feet high. It probably lit up the main entrance when the foundry was running.
She did some calculations. Then she pulled out her fusing wand and ran over to it.
I scrumming hope this works.
* * *
The man-thing hung in the air above the dunes across from Sancia, silent and still. Then the sands started to swirl around him, undulating in smooth rings as if being whipped about by a storm—but there was no wind, at least not that strong.
Please, no, thought Sancia. Not him. Anyone but him.
The man-thing slowly started to rotate to face her. The sound of flapping wings was deafening now, as if the night sky were thick with invisible butterflies.
Terror filled her, wordless and shrieking and mad. No! No, I can’t! I can’t let him see me, I can’t LET HIM SEE ME!
The thing raised a black hand, fingers extended to the sky. The air quaked, and the sky shuddered.
Then there was a tremendous crack sound, and the vision faded.
* * *
She was back in the office, on her knees. Her stomach was boiling with nausea, and there was vomit on the floor—but she was back in her own body.
<What was that?> she thought—though she already suspected. <Clef…was that a memory? A memory of yours?>
He didn’t answer.
“What the hell was that sound?” said a voice beyond the office door.
She froze, listening.
“The damn lamp column fell over outside! It fell over the walls and into the yard!”
<Clef?> she asked. <Clef. Are you there?>
<Yes,> he said, though his voice was very small.
<What’s going on? Are there guards out there?>
<Yes. And they’re coming straight for you.>
Sancia stumbled forward and slipped through the door to the empty adjoining office. She climbed up onto the desk just as she heard a knock. “Miss?” called a voice. “Miss? We need to come in and get something off the desk. Don’t be alarmed, please.”
“Shit,” muttered Sancia. She leapt up, grabbed the window, and hauled herself through the top. Then she slipped out, gripped the edge of the building, and started to climb up to the fourth floor.
She heard a voice cry, “What in hell? What happened here! Wake the girl up, now, now!”
She crawled through the fourth-floor window and started sprinting back toward the maintenance shaft. About halfway there she heard the floor below erupt in shouting.
<They’ve sent the alarm out,> said Clef quietly. <They’re looking for you now.>
<Yeah,> she said, leaping into the shaft. <I gathered.>
* * *
Berenice exhaled with relief as she watched Sancia clamber back through the fourth-floor window. The half-melted base of the lamp tower was still glowing a cheerful red before her. She’d never intended to use the wand for this, and scrupulously made a note of this new application.
Then she heard the shouts from over the walls—guards, probably. And soon they’d be coming out to see what had happened.
“Shit,” said Berenice. She ran for the canal.
* * *
Sancia dropped down the lexicon shaft as fast as she could, leaping from rung to rung until she came to the ground floor. Then she staggered back down the passageways, heading to the rubbish room in the basement, where Berenice had so adeptly carved the hole in the wall.
She could hear footsteps in the hallways behind her and above her, men shouting and doors flying open. She ran as fast as she could, but her head felt slow and sluggish. She tasted blood in her mouth and realized her nose was bleeding quite a lot.
I hope I don’t goddamn bleed out before I make it out of here, she thought wearily. Not after all this work.
Then she heard a voice far behind her: “Stop! Stop, you!”
She looked over her shoulder and saw an armored guard standing far down at the end of the passageway behind her. She saw him lift his espringal, and leapt behind a corner just as a scrived bolt shrieked down the hallway, cracking into the wall on the far end. Scrumming terrible place to dodge shots, she thought. But she had no choice: she flung herself back around the corner and sprinted for the door to the rubbish bin.
“She’s here, she’s here!” screamed the guard.
She reached the metal door, threw it open, and leapt into the darkness, slamming the door behind her. She fumbled down the dark steps to the hole in the wall, half-worried she’d fall off the walkway into the piles of scrap metal below. Then there was a harsh crack-crack-crack, and the room filled with weak light. She looked back to see the door behind now had three large holes in it, undoubtedly put there by scrived bolts.
God, they’ll tear through that in a second! she thought.
“Come on!” hissed a voice in the darkness. “Come on!”
She turned and saw a light on the far wall—Berenice’s scrived light, shining through the hole she’d made. Sancia leapt down the steps and threw herself through the breach.
“We won’t run far!” she gasped as she emerged. “They’re right behind me!”
“I am aware of that.” Berenice had her back to her, and she seemed to be fiddling with something in the roof of the tunnel. “There,” she said, stepping back. Sancia saw it was the anchor she’d used to open the grate of the pipe, but now it was attached to the end of a spike that looked like it’d been stabbed up into the bricks. “Come on. Now we really need to run.”
Sancia staggered to her feet and limped down the tunnel. There was a faint crackling sound behind them.
“No, faster,” said Berenice, anxious. “Like, much faster.” She grabbed Sancia, threw her arm over her shoulder, and hauled her forward just as the crackling grew to a rumble.
Sancia looked back to see the brick section of the tunnel suddenly collapse, sending a wall of dust flying at them. “Holy hell,” she said.
“I don’t think it should bring down the metal parts of the pipe,” said Berenice as they hobbled up to the grate. “But I would prefer not to find out so—up! Up and out, now!”
Sancia wiped blood from her face, grabbed the rungs, and started to climb.
20
“I …I thought I told you just to follow them!” said Orso, aghast.
“Well, we did that,” croaked Sancia. She spat another mouthful of blood into a bucket. “You didn’t say not to do all the other stuff.”
“To break into a foundry?” he squawked. “And…and to collapse its metallurgical outtake piping? I had thought such things would have easily been beyond the pale of common sense—or am I mad, Berenice?”
He glared at Berenice, who was sitting in the corner of his office, sorting through the notes Sancia had stolen. Gregor leaned over her shoulder, idly reviewing them with his hands clasped behind his back. “I was merely confirming a suspicion you had articulated, sir,” she said.
“And which one was that?”
She looked up. “That it was Tomas Ziani who’s behind all this. That is why you spoke to Estelle at the meeting yesterday—correct, sir?”
Gregor blinked and stood. “Estelle Ziani? Wait—the daughter of Tribuno Candiano? Orso talked to her?”
“You sure are telling a hell of a lot of tales out of school!” Orso snarled at her.